Threadgill Everywhere: Review of Threadgill/Iyer/Prieto

When I first started listening to the music of Henry Threadgill in the late 1970s — he was making fresh, daring music with the trio Air along with drummer Steve McCall and bassist Fred Hopkins — I would never have guessed that in 30-40 years he would be one of the most influential figures for the future of jazz. But that is absolutely the case. He has two new albums out. My review ofFifteen, by the cooperative trio of Threadgill, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dafnis Prieto up today. Fifteen is Threadgill's debut on Nonesuch Records, where jazz goes to say, Check Me Out! Threadgill also has a new recording with his band Zooid, on Pi Recordings, and my review will follow any day now. What a nice August I have had, listening to Threadgill remind me that he is not just an 'influence' but an active force! Thanks for reading Big Butter & Egg Man: Layman on Jazz and Culture! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The incredible vitality of Henry Threadgill in modern music is attributable to several things. There are always great players in jazz — and some subset of them make great albums that persist over time. We can hear those players echoed in the style and substance of other players over time. For example, this weekend at the DC Jazzfest, I heard the amazing young trumpet player Brandon Woody — working in a band led by pianist Luther Allison1. Wow, does this guy play beautifully and bravely, and the influence of Freddie Hubbard on his sound is palpable. But is Hubbard an important influence on the music as a whole? As a result, we can hear a version of Threadgill's musical ideas in a succeeding generation (or two!) of amazing musicians. And his musical ideas have turned out to be sturdy and mutable in interesting ways. When we listen to guitarist Brandon Ross perform with his cooperative trio Harriet Tubman or in the astonishing (and popular) music he made with vocalist Cassandra Wilson, we are hearing elements of Threadgill's art — Ross was his guitarist on seven different albums and many gigs across more than a decade. The band onFifteenintersects with Threadgill in other ways. Dafnis Prieto recorded with Threadgill twice before (on both of the 2001, simultaneously released Pi albumEverybody's Mouth's a BookandUp Popped Two Lips). Vijay Iyer comes from a different 'system' associated with saxophonist Steve Coleman, but Prieto played with Coleman too — that's where Cassandra Wilson got her start in New York, et cetera and so forth. Yes, yes, I know that this has ever been the case in jazz: 'sidemen'2shuffle among many leaders on various record dates and across bands. But it is that small set of leaders with a Big Idea and a devotion to keeping bands of young players together that stamp the music with legacy. Share Ellington, Basie, and Stan Kenton(and some other big bands) — they not only trained young players, but they had bands with a specificsound and practicethat was passed down. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie— they not only created and embodied the new style called 'bebop' in the 1940s, but they led bands that helped the style take over jazz through their musical progeny. Art Blakey— his Jazz Messengers band (and also the quintet of his once-partner, pianist Horace Silver) created a powerful model for making assertive 'hard bop' that is practically the default model of small group jazz to this day. Miles Davis— he led bands that molded post-bop jazz into new forms (modal playing, free-bop that occupied a middle territory between bop and flexible tonality, jazz-funk-rock) that carry his style and imprint. John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman— they both pioneered jazz that broke free of bebop tonality and time, but they also hired sidemen and championed other players who developed this style in various directions. Since that time, 50 years ago (about half of the length of total jazz history), the musicians who had created this kind of organized, systemic legacy are few. The three American improvisor/composers who stand out as influences of this kind are Threadgill, his fellow Chicago natives Steve Coleman and Anthony Braxton. Braxtonwas a pioneer as a jazz educator (teaching at Mill College and then Wesleyan University from 1985-2013) as well as a member of the Association for the Advnacement of Creative Musicians. His systems (yes, there are more than one) that define his compositions and improvisation shema) and the names/diagrams that are the titles of his work can sound like mumbo-jumbo, but he has written extensive volunes of explanation:three volumes ofTri-Axium Writingsand five volumes ofComposition Notes.I have only read summaries, but Braxton's music is based on more than notes on the staff or harmonic theory — he has cataloged many types of 'Language Music' that are cued in his written compositions to create complexly structured layers and tiers that prompt the musicians to interact. This language has struck some listeners as soulless or even European, but I have always heard it as more like the communication among West African drummers and singers — not particularly like blues-based 'jazz,' but layered with overlapping rhythms and melodic cells that are structured and improvised at the same time. Steve Colemanwas the leader in developing a philosophy dubbed 'macro-basicarray ofstructuredextemporization" or M-BASE. According to Coleman, this system was not a purelyl musical language or notation system but away of approaching musicthat included the expression of the musician's life experiences, a non-Wester influence, and a non-commercial approach. Listening to the M-BASE recordings and Coleman's many bands, you can hear music that uses whirling rhythmic structures, concepts from West Africa, and improvisation that is neither entirely 'free' nor a repetition of the harmonic language of bebop. Henry Threadgillhasn't developed a name or philosophy for his musican language that I am aware of. But his music overlaps in some ways with that of Braxton and Coleman: he uses unusual instrumentations rather than sticking with traditional jazz formats; his compositions are not based on a lead sheet (a melody with associated chords) and do not suggest that musicians 'improvise on the changes'; and the music includes a lot of polyrhythms (overlapping pulse structures) and harmonic content that is neither wholly diatonic nor utterly atonal. Collectively, these three musicians have molded the jazz of the new century so that it is increasingly complex, shares some characteristics with classical 'new music,' is more international/cross-cultural, and — frankly — is more plainly a for of art music than popular music. Thanks for reading Big Butter & Egg Man: Layman on Jazz and Culture! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Allison, who presented three originals in a 20-minute program, won the competition with the able assistance of Woody, drummer Joe Dyson, alto saxophonist Markus Howell, Jeffrey Miller on trombone, and bassist Jonathon Müir-Cotton. More on the Festival to come this week. 'Sideman' is an outdated term of art — 'side people' if you prefer,.